LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Wren's Nest article talks about a creepy practice of some "See You At The Flagpole" Christians:

United by their love for Christ and their concern for a spiritually broken world, students Wednesday met at local schools for the annual "See You at the Pole" event.

Nearly 150 students gathered early in the morning at the Edmond North High School yard where they prayed for their school, for their community, for President Bush and for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

They also prayed for non-Christian students in their school and wrote their names down on paper.

In a solemn, symbolic offering, they nailed the pieces of paper to a wooden cross, set up beside the flag pole.

But this isn't the only type of negaitve prayer magic (and yes, it is a form of harmful, binding magic) that these True Believers ™ are encouraged to practice. On this SYATP site, believers are encouraged to pray over photographs in their yearbook:

Yearbook praying:

This is a great strategy for getting your church involved in praying for Christian and non-Christian students at your school. See if you can purchase an extra yearbook from last year or plan ahead and by an extra one this year. Cut the pictures out in rows that include five to seven students and have them ready for people at your church to pick up. Ask them to pick up a strip of pictures and commit to pray for each student once a week. They don’t even have to know the student to pray for them. The key is to have them pray that if the student is a Christian, that God would use them to make an impact on their campus that day. That if they are not a Christian, that they would give their hearts to Christ. Can you imagine the impact that would happen if every student on your campus were prayed for once a week for the entire year? Another option, in case you can’t get a yearbook is to use a school directory or a list of students at your school. This should be a public list that’s available to anyone so you won’t be invading anybody’s privacy. If your school is big, involve other churches in this prayer effort and watch what God can do when His people pray.

This is not benevolent prayer- not by a long shot. The impact and intent of these bindings and prayers is to forcibly convert people to their flavor of faith by the application of binding or image magic- either by 'nailing' them, or by 'breaking' them. Both are extremely negative practices (not to mention being prohibited in their very own Scriptures), and should be 'outed' for the genuine 'black' kind of magic (harming others through applied prayer) that is truly is. Were Pagans or other faiths permitted to practice such things on school grounds, I can guarantee you that the Powers That Be would not see them as beneficial at all. Sauce for the goose. This practice needs to be outed for the hypocracy it truly is.

Another link: Should I 'See you at the pole?'

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY matraia)

Been semi-lurking for a while now, so I though I'd reveal myself. I'm a young philosophy/religion graduate now living in Georgia who has a strong interest in the topics discussed here, especially those related to eschatology (end of the world) and soteriology (methods of salvation).

Religiously I'm a Theravadin Buddhist, though I was raised 'non-denominational Christian' and converted while studying Buddhist scriptures deeply for my undergraduate thesis. One of the things that has surprised me in reading around is that dominionists have very few attacks against my religion that I am aware of. The focus seems to be on non-dominionist Christians, Atheists/Agnostics and the various flavors of the Neopagan movement. Perhaps it's a population thing, or perhaps we get lumped in with "New Agers". I suppose we pose a bit of a conundrum to them. Are any of you aware of any movements against Buddhism or Eastern religions/philosophies in general?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

'In its unanimous ruling, the court declared that a Marion County judge was out of bounds in approving a divorce decree that also directed the parents to shelter their 10 year old son from non mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.'

(Edited to make it a bit clearer that the dominionists *lost* for once. Never ever type before coffee :3)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165696,00.html

Apparently, town with dominionist influence--which was actually invoking Jesus before town council meeting--gets sued by Wiccan, and the Wiccan *wins* (for once).

Town has only $15,000 insurance, and may have to end up paying over $65,000 in court costs in result (the courts are still ruling on whether court costs are to be awarded).

(Of minor interest--one of the major folks supporting the dominionists is (shock, shock) an AoG preacher at a church with a not-terribly-dissimilar name to the one I walked away from (though in a completely different state). They've claimed if the courts rule for payment of court costs by the town, the church will cover it...I dare say the next step after *that* should be revocation of the church's tax exempt status. If they can shell out $65,000 for court costs to spite someone who sued for violation of the *Constitution*, I think they can afford to pay their damned taxes.)

EDIT:

( Backgrounder )

For what it's worth, South Carolina is also a state that has been specifically targeted by dominionists for invasion with the goal of ultimate secession.

( the hive of scum and villany responsible )

Some further backgrounder:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/wicgf.htm

Info on the other case that could be tried with this (should this go to the Supremes, as the dominionists are threatening to):

http://www.wildhunt.org/2004/11/catching-up-so-much-of-my-and-worlds.html

EDIT AGAIN:

Here's the actual court docket, for the legal minded:

http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/032069.P.pdf

Fark.com has been reporting on this and many of the links regarding information are from the discussion thread (http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1622014). Props where props are deserved :3

EDIT YET AGAIN:

Apparently, per at least one source, the Supremes refused to review the case, hence the court ruling stands (This per the Religioustolerance.org link above).

Also, not only is she *still* not being heard at town hall meetings (regarding a matter of public safety, at that), but the town is making noises about possibly defying the court ruling:
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/4987993p-4556234c.html

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

from The Guardian

Unholy strictures

It is wrong - and dangerous - to believe literal truth can be found in religious texts
Karen Armstrong
Thursday August 11, 2005

Guardian
Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Salon magazine has a book review about "Divided by God".

An excerpt:

The trouble with "Divided by God" is that Feldman seems to accept McConnell's legal argument as the actual political motivation of the Christian right. Values evangelicals, in his telling, just want to be heard along with everybody else. "In its most sophisticated and attractive form, values evangelicism is actually a type of mutliculturalist pluralism, professing respect for faith as faith and for cultural tradition as tradition," Feldman writes. "This inclusive vision of a society in which one can partake in the common American project by the very act of worshipping as one chooses is more than broad enough to accommodate new religious diversity that has come about as a result of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist immigration."

If this is what "values evangelicism" is, then the term is almost meaningless, since it doesn't apply to any of the leadership of the Christian right, the group that's actually fighting the culture wars that Feldman is trying to mediate. Consider, for example, how the Family Research Council -- the Washington spinoff of James Dobson's enormously powerful Focus on the Family -- reacted in 2000 when Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first Hindu priest to offer an invocation before Congress. "While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage," the group said in an apoplectic statement. "Our Founders expected that Christianity -- and no other religion -- would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."

This was not an isolated outburst -- it wouldn't be hard to find enough similar quotes to fill a volume larger than Feldman's entire book. Sure, the Christian right may invite a token rabbi -- often the South African ultraconservative Daniel Lapin -- to its functions to promote an image of ecumenism, but that cannot hide the motivating belief in Christian supremacy, spiritual and political, at the movement's core.

The author of the review, Michelle Goldberg, will be publishing a book next year called ""Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism" which I plan to get and read.

http://www.gwaihir.org/archives/2005/05/too_stupid_to_r.html (my apologies if this is a repeat)

Specifically:

Q: Mr. Vice President, thank you for coming to Georgia, and thank you and the President for your leadership in the war on terror. Millions of Americans appreciate that.

My question is, I watched the press conference the other night with the President, and it seems like when the two of you come up with serious ideas that those from the other faith, in the other party, all they do is demonize and, in many cases, just lie and try to divide the older generation, our grandparents from us, those in our 30s.

Yes, you are reading this right: Cheney is buying into the whole dominionist "If you aren't with us, you're with SATAN" thing. That statement is actually a coded message to dominionists.

And they're now officially, in Avengelical-speak, labeling *all* Democrats and Republicans who don't toe the dominionist party line as bona-fide devil-worshippers. (Explanation below.)

Dominionist groups, including the specific group I walked away from (the AoG) believe, flat out, if you are not a dominionist (and often a *good* dominionist at that)--if you're not a frothing Avengelical--you are a flat out diabolist. They see people from non-dominionist denominations as literal *devil worshippers*; they flat out claim there *are* only two faiths, Avengelicalism and, well, Satanism.

As noted before, dominionist groups don't even see other Christians as "truly Christian" (as evidenced by the fact that other mainstream denominations worldwide, even relatively conservative denominations like the Eastern Rite and the Roman Catholic Church, are getting increasingly angry about Avengelicals practicing "sheep-stealing"); they literally see all other non-dominionist denominations as "satanic" and even as *perversions* of Christianity itself (ironic, seeing as many of the institutions they label as "satanic" are as old as Christianity itself and most dominionist denominations are less than 100 years old; the oldest, the Southern Baptists, actually split from the mainstream Baptists over slavery in the 1840's and has gone hardcore dominionist largely in the past 15 years or so).

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Mainstream Baptist comes this critique of the Supreme Court nominee John Roberts:

If the report from People for the American Way is reliable, then Roberts is clearly an advocate for the government to extend special privileges and endorsements of majoritarian religious expression.

Roberts was co-author of a brief in the landmark Lee v. Weisman decision that argued in favor of prayers at public high school graduations. He argued that graduates opposed to religious exercises were free to voluntarily skip participating in their graduation exercises. SCOTUS ruled against Roberts opinion in that decision.

Roberts has also argued that the "Lemon test" should be jettisoned. The "Lemon test" is the standard that SCOTUS set forth in the landmark "Lemon v. Kurtzman" decision that gave guidance on how government legislation on religion could be considered constitutional. The "Lemon test" says the government's action must have 1) a legitimate secular purpose, 2) it must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and 3) it must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of government and religion.

In my opinion, Roberts opinions demonstrate extreme insensitivity toward the rights of religious minorities. When the hubris that demands special privilege is coupled with the obsequity that grants it, it inevitably creates enough outrage at such injustice that the privileged become despised and the privileges are rejected.

Links are on the blog page.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Citing state law, a judge bars use of the Muslim holy book, but some say the move violates the Constitution.

As Muslim-Christian relations are under the spotlight around the world,US judges sometimes face a vexing question: Can witnesses raise their right hand and swear to tell the truth ... on the Koran?

The recent refusal by a Guilford County, N.C., judge to allow a Muslim woman to swear upon Islam's holy text before testifying is, in part, a new First Amendment challenge.

...because, well, if Iraq is an example, they don't exactly consider you "Christian" to begin with:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202335.html

(Article on dominionist groups in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East; they are actually targeting the Catholic and Orthodox communities there every bit as much, if not *more*, than the Islamic community)

Included are statements from the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic church (which is Iraqi's largest Christian church, and affiliated with the Orthodox/Eastern Rite community)--whom has already asked the dominionists to please leave the country and quit trying to convert his parishoners (who are in a denomination that has practiced Christianity since very nearly the time of Christ itself, is regarded (along with the Coptic Church) as being one of the two or three oldest traditions of Christianity itself, and has quite a heritage compared with dominionist groups (that have been around for far less long--the parent denominations of dominionism *only* really within the past 100-150 years (150ish for the Southern Baptists, less than 100 for the various pentecostal denominations like AoG associated with the pentecostal movement)); also, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Iraq has his own statements condemning the dominionists.

Also, understandably, the Moslem leaders (including one of the major Shi'a clerics) are expressing grave concern.

Iraq isn't the only country this is occuring in, by the way; the article also mentions attempts in Jordan and Syria (among other countries) and I do know Israel itself has expressed concern regarding dominionists (between dominionists who are attempting to foment a religious war between Jewish and Moslem populations in the area, dominionists on their own (or working with Jewish-dominionist groups) in plans to "reestablish the Temple", and dominionists promoting "messianic Judaism" who are attempting to convert Jews in Israel to "kosher dominionists"). In fact, in Israel it's gotten so bad there have been efforts in the Knesset to pass laws to crack down on dominionist "messianic Jew" conversionists (http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/j4jlibrary/missiontoisrael.html has info on the one end on how bad the "messianic Jew" evangelism idiocy has gotten with dominionists in Israel, and http://www.religioustolerance.org/news_99nov.htm has info on previous efforts in Israel re antimissionary bills proposed (largely due to dominionists attempting to convert Jews to "messianic Jews")) and many (if not most) countries in the former USSR have passed laws to crack down on missionaries *specifically* because of abuses by dominionists (including, in particular, targeting Eastern Orthodox for conversion); http://www.wwrn.org/article.php?idd=8632&sec=36&cont=7 has a few examples.

In other words...if you're not a dominionist, even if you are in a Christian denomination or are Jewish, they *do not* consider you Christian at all. (In the group I walked away from, Methodists et al were seen as "lukewarm Christians", even Southern Baptists were seen as "lukewarm" because they didn't rant in tongues or "dance in the spirit" in church, and Catholic/Orthodox were seen as "saint-worshippers" and "idol-worshippers") They *will* target people who are already Christian for conversion. If they get in power, they will likely only consider *dominionists* truly Christian.

It's not just a problem for pagans. It's a problem for *everyone*.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Christian adoption agency snubs Catholics

A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples because their religion conflicts with the agency's "Statement of Faith."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

This is not specifically mentioned as being Dominionist, but I would be willing to bet that the poster has no idea of what a Dominionist is. It sure sounds like what could happen if they take over.

Posted with permission from mamadeb's journal:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mamadeb/409566.html?view=1880542#t1880542

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY idragosani)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8332214/

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Here's today's cultural warfare update from solarbird. Topics include:

* Decision against divorced Wiccan couple upheld by higher court. Both want to raise their son in their faith, but a lower court ordered in the divorce decree not to "expose" their child to their religious beliefs because that might "confuse" him since he goes to a Catholic school. An appeal is in process to the Indiana Court of Appeals.

* Focus on the Family calls the end-of-term Ten Commandments decisions "dangerous."

* Focus on the Family complains about CDC school survey about sexual activity.

* Focus on the Family report on "threats to religious liberty" -- including marriage rights, abortion rights, and "secularism in culture."

* "Christian" groups plan to install 100 Texas-like Ten Commandments displays in cities across the country, in reaction to the recent Supreme Court rulings.

* Concerned Women for America blacks the new GBLT-themed television cable channel LOGO as an "assault on children."

* The Traditional Values Coalition attacks the latest Supreme Court decisions as "attack[s] on religious freedom."

She also includes the following update on Love in Action from Focus on the Family's webfeed:

( Frightening Love in Action Update )

I hope you all find this informative.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article describes an encounter by a Druid couple with an overzealous volunteer policeman:

Tony Gainey and D.J. Gainey said reserve officer Tony Stewart pulled them over because of the bumper stickers on their car. One of the stickers read, "It's a druid thing."( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

There are individuals who go door-to-door in a desperate attempt to convert others to their faith. Those of us who are not interested in this face-to-face equivalent of spam either refuse to answer the door or blindly take the pamphlet that is handed to us, knowing that we will be throwing it in the trash.

I am a Pagan, so their conversion attempts are annoying, to say the least. Luckily for me, because of my honesty and courtesy toward them, there is usually no problem.

Then they decided to prey upon my child.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

No surprise that this is happening in Tulsa....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050608/ap_on_re_us/zoo_display

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

"My Thoughts, exactly" has an entry about how, even though he teaches Sunday School, he isn't really a Christian:

I then paused (yeah, for effect) and then announced to the class that I am not a Christian. I told them I knew they must be shocked since I was a Sunday School teacher and I desperately want to be in the ministry full-time, but I simply was not a Christian (again, a pause for effect). The term “Christian is used three times in Scripture (see here, here, and here). The context of each of these uses indicates that the name “Christian” was applied and therefore defined by those who were not “Christians”. In other words, non-Christians define what it means to be a Christian. At this, some in my class gave me knowing looks as if they knew where I was headed. After my dramatic pause, I told them that to be a Christian in America means four things. A Christian is one who (1) opposes gay marriage, (2) opposes abortion, (3) is pro-war, and (4) is Republican. I then proceeded to shock the class even more by announcing that I could not be a Christian because I am not a Republican.

The whole entry is quite interesting.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY meta4life)

God, I hope this isn't inappropriate...

Anyway, I'm currently researching and writing an article (series!) on the influences of the ultra-religious right wing on modern American culture. What I've got so far is both byzantine and dismaying -- and I know I've only scratched the surface.

I've got lots of quotes and sources for other areas, but where I'm lacking is material that links Dobson, Perkins, Falwell et. al. to religious intolerance. I've got Robertson's stupidity from just this month, but what I really need is stuff that links other popular leaders of this movement to religious hate statements, or the equivalent.

Can anyone help me? You can leave your links in the Comments, if I don't get whacked for an inappropriate post (I hope not -- this community is the best-informed I know for this kind of thing).

Thanks loads!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Did this judge flunk his constitutional law classes?


http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050526/NEWS01/505260481